Riptide
by KAZ2Y5-Imagines
Summary: You've managed to convince Dean to take a few days off from hunting and the two of you are taking a drive down the Pacific Coast Highway. Some smut.
1. Riptide

"Dean, no."

"Why not?"

"You don't really want to have this conversation with me," you said.

"I really do. That's why I asked." You sighed and looked at him, hitching the sheet up around yourself as you sat up and faced him in his bed.

"It's gross," you said simply.

"_What_? I keep Baby clean, what are you talking about?"

"That's not what I mean."

"Then what _do_ you mean? Do you know how many stray dogs Sam's tried to bring home in the backseat and I didn't let him? It's pristine back there. And comfortable," he leaned forward as he spoke, kissing your bare back.

"Dean, Sam may not have had any bitches in the backseat, but you have," you said, laying it out for him. He pulled back and looked at you, amusement clear in his green eyes.

"Oh," he laughed, before seeing your expression and stopping immediately. "And you're grossed out?"

You cleared your throat and narrowed your eyes at him. "This," you said, gesturing between the two of you. "This is not a one-night stand."

"Hell no, it's not," he agreed.

"We're different. We're special. And having sex in the back of your car like you used to do with I don't want to know how many women—don't you dare smile at that," you said, pointing a finger at him sternly. He pressed his lips together firmly. "That's not special," you finished with a shrug.

"Simple as that?" he asked.

"Simple as that. I don't know why that's some big dream of yours anyway," you said.

"Because I want you," he replied, gently pulling you back down to lay beside him. He began kissing your neck, letting his words come between them. "I want you everywhere." His hands moved under the sheets and gently tickled at your sides causing you to giggle. You made a few feeble attempts to push him away.

"You can have me anywhere else," you smiled, kissing him back. He looked at you, pushing some hair from your face.

"That's actually still a pretty good deal," he said, and pulled the sheets back over you both.

—

You woke early the next morning to get going. You had the next three days off, as near to a miracle as you'd seen in your time hunting with the Winchesters, and you didn't want to waste a minute. Dean had actually agreed to go away with you, a second miracle in and of itself; he was going to forget about hunting and cases for an entire three days. You'd just finished a werewolf case on the west coast and made an impromptu plan to drive down the Pacific Coast Highway before making your way back through to Lebanon.

Sam had quickly grown weary of finding the two of you in various states of undress during the weeks you'd been together, even with a separate room when the three of you stopped at motels, and he had made arrangements to get home on his own. He was all too happy as he waved the two of you off from the motel parking lot that morning.

"Weirdo's probably going to run home," Dean scoffed as Sam disappeared in the rear view.

The drive was beautiful as you set off; the sky was pristine, absolutely spotless clean in the sky, wiped free of clouds. The air felt different out there on the coast and with Dean's hand on yours in the middle of the seat, you felt as though you could drive forever. You gasped when the ocean came into view for the first time, it had been years since you'd last seen its grandeur, and Dean watched you take it in, enjoying his own view. You drove over bluffs with sprawling views of the sea and sand, twisting and turning down the highway. You never felt scared with Dean in the driver's seat, you never had.

"And what would you do if something were to…mysteriously happen to all your tapes?" you teased a few hours in to listening to the same twelve classic rock songs, holding one of said tapes in your hand and rolling your window down.

"Don't you dare," Dean said, a smile teasing at his face. You laughed and put the tape back in the box. You left the window down and let the salty air fill your lungs.

The two of you had no plans, no itinerary of any kind except to drive until you needed gas. You drove about five hours before stopping at a beachside diner and ordering burgers as the sun beat down pleasantly on your backs. You tossed french fries to one another and laughed when a stray one ended up attracting an entire flock of seagulls.

Dean allowed you to take his hand after you'd eaten and lead him past the sandy parking lot out to the beach. You strolled at a leisurely pace across the sand, Dean holding your shoes for you. You walked until you lost sight of his car and the diner in the distance; it was easy to do that at the beach.

"Aah! It's cold," you screamed when the water surprised you and came up to your ankles.

"Put your shoes back on, weirdo," Dean smiled at you, placing a kiss in your hair.

"The sea is my first love and I'm going to enjoy this," you replied, lifting your chin at him.

"_First_ love, huh?" he asked and you nodded, feeling the tug on your lips. Neither of you had said it, you'd both been playing a game of chicken with those three small, yet utterly consequential words.

Dean could feel himself on the precipice of it, right there overlooking the edge. He could almost feel it on his lips, ready to slip out. It didn't scare him so much; he knew he was going to take that fall sooner or later, he just worried that you wouldn't join him. He felt he could give in so easily, just close his eyes and… He looked over at you, the wind blowing your hair around your face. You'd started talking about your first time seeing the ocean as a kid, how it had filled you with wonder even then. You talked about how it swaddled you up in its salty waves, knocking you down to your knees and filling your lungs, mouth, and nose with water before righting you once more. Something bigger than yourself. That's what you were saying. It made you believe in something bigger than yourself.

You stopped talking, mid-story, at the look on Dean's face. You brought your hand to your own, pushing your hair back self-consciously.

"What is it? Something wrong?" you asked. He blinked at you and smiled wider.

"Nothing at all, actually," he replied.

"Alright," you said skeptically and felt him squeeze your hand before you continued with your story.

—

You drove a little further on that afternoon, stopping a few towns down the coast at a small inn on the water near Half Moon Bay.

"What are you doing, crazy? It's freezing," Dean said, watching you open the window.

"You big baby. I want to hear the waves," you replied, standing there and breathing in the night air for a moment before hopping into bed beside him.

"You're going to put your freezing feet on me," he said as you got comfortable.

"Yes." You felt him laugh against you as he wrapped his arms around you from behind, both of you turned to face the window. You turned your head and met him in a kiss, holding him there with your hand, and pressed your feet to his legs.

"You're a brat," he said against your lips.

"Yes," you replied once more, before turning back and closing your eyes, warmed from Dean and letting the sound of the waves outside lull you into a deep sleep.

You slept in the next morning, not even setting an alarm for the first time in weeks. You loved waking up before Dean, being the one to pull him from his dreams, hoping when you did it was into an even more pleasant reality. You would start by pressing kisses to his chest, working your way up to his neck, and finally his lips at which time he would be awake enough to respond in kind. He moved his lips with yours sleepily, and snaked his arms around your back, pulling you flush with him. He moved his hands under your pajama shirt, slowly, leisurely, kneading your breasts gently as he moved his mouth to your neck.

"We slept in," you groaned with a smile, tilting your head up to give him better access.

"So?" he asked.

"So we have a checkout time," you replied, putting your hands on his shoulders.

"Let's stay here another night. We could stay in bed all day."

"We could stay in bed all day at the bunker. We have to keep going," you insisted.

"Ok," he said, but negated his words by pulling your shirt off and tossing it away. He rolled you over so that you were laying on top of him.

"Dean, we'll have to pay for a late checkout. We really need to go," you said once more, though your words were much less firm as he grazed his teeth across your earlobe.

"Ok," he whispered and you shivered at his breath against your skin, feeling yourself giving into him.

The late checkout fee turned out not to be that bad.

—

You made it to Malibu later that day, despite your late start. Dean surprised you several miles in by asking a simple question.

"Why don't you play me some of your music?" he asked, popping his well-worn tape out. You looked over at him, letting your jaw drop dramatically. He glanced back and laughed.

"Dean, is that you? Should I do the silver test? Did a shapeshifter take your place?"

"No shifter," he replied. "Just play me something. I know you made a mix for this trip."

You smiled; he knew you well. You had a mix for everything and had gone to great lengths to pick the right songs for this trip. You turned and rummaged in your bag in the backseat for your ipod and found the ipod jack Sam had installed so long ago on the floor. You hooked it up and shuffled through your playlists until you found 'PCH Mix'.

You cranked the first song up and looked to Dean, shimmying in your seat, dancing as much as your seatbelt allowed and staring at him until you made him laugh.

"It's good, right? Beachy!" you said.

"Oh, very beachy," he replied with a nod and you pushed his arm lightly.

"Lady, running down to the riptide! Taken away to the dark-side! Do you want to be my left-hand man?" you sang to Dean. "Hey, Dean. I changed the lyrics for you. Do you want to be my left-hand man?" you asked seriously.

Dean chuckled and took your hand in his, kissing the back of it. You sang the whole thing, badly and loudly, reveling in every moment of getting to listen to your own playlist in the Impala. Dean had trouble keeping his eyes on the road, watching the life in you spark and catch fire while you sang. He let you play your songs over and over, listening to each one with new ears because they were your favorites.

You stopped just as the sun was beginning its descent, dipping slowly into the water on the edge of the world. Dean parked the Impala and you walked down the beach, far away until you hit a pier, standing underneath it while you watched the stars start to peek out one by one.

The air was warmer there and you sat with Dean in the sand, still cozy from the sun it had bathed in all day. You pulled his arm around your shoulder.

"This is nice," you said. His response was his lips on yours.

The night wore on and you sat together, not saying a word, just watching the moon change the tide. The beach cleared slowly of families and couples walking their dogs until it was only you and Dean alone on the sand. It seemed as good a place as any to stop for the night and you curled up together, falling asleep right there under the pier in the warm night air.

The following day brought with it the realization that it was time to head away from the beach and back towards the bunker, back towards normalcy, or at least your version of it. You and Dean trudged together through the sand and back to the car, reluctant to leave the water's edge.

You didn't realize until you sat how much sand you'd brought back with you, immediately jumping back out.

"It's in my hair! It's getting everywhere!" you laughed. "I'm so sorry!" Dean looked over at you, watching as you desperately tried to wipe the seat clear and he reached over to grab your hand, stopping you.

"Hey," he said with a chuckle. "It's ok. It's not a big deal."

Your eyes softened and you nodded. "Ok," you said, eyeing him to make sure he meant it before getting in.

The waves faded away behind you in the distance.

—

With the afternoon came a wall of rain and you were forced to slow down in order to see through it.

"I don't think we're going to get back in time," you said, looking out the windshield at the deluge.

"That's fine. Sammy can take care of himself, he's really growing up, you know?" Dean teased. "Hey, why don't you play me your rain mix? Do you have one?"

"Do I have one?" you asked with a scoff, and eagerly pulled your ipod out again, plugging it in and starting the first song. It was definitely not quite Dean's regular style but he didn't say a word as the tune filled the car. You watched him as he drove along, so steady, and thought about your trip. You couldn't imagine him letting any other girl play her music in his car, and he had definitely not gone on a road trip with anyone else before you. He glanced over at you with a smile, feeling your eyes on him.

"We should stop for gas soon," he murmured, checking the gauge.

"Ok," you said. "Hey, can I wear your jacket? I'm a little cold."

"Of course," he said and you retrieved it from the back, pulling the leather around you.

—

You waited nervously in the car for Dean to get back from his snack run inside the gas station you were sitting in front of, feeling thankful there was no one else around. The rain was still coming down in torrents, creating puddles every couple of feet on the pothole ridden lot. You straightened up when you saw Dean approaching the car.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," he laughed, stopping in his tracks when he saw you.

"What?" you asked innocently from the passenger's seat. "You said I could wear your jacket."

"I didn't realize you'd be wearing _only_ my jacket," he said, sliding in and shutting the door. He leaned over, dropping the bags to the backseat floor, and started kissing your neck but you stopped him.

"I'm not having sex in front of some hick town's convenience store. You get us somewhere out of town and I'm all yours," you said.

"Such a tease," Dean said with a grin, looking over at you once more before tearing his eyes away and gunning the gas pedal, peeling out towards the road.

You grinned as he drove, noting the way his eyes were sliding to you every couple seconds; he couldn't keep them away. It had been a bit tough, navigating out of your shorts and shirt in the front seat, trying to keep your modesty under his leather jacket, but the looks he was giving you now made it worth it the struggle.

"I thought you said you were cold," he teased as he drove, going much faster than he had been before.

You shrugged. "I warmed up a little."

"And what happened to you saying this wasn't special?"

"I guess you changed my mind," you said. It was as close as you were going to get to saying it to him, determined not to break first. His hand slid over, crossing the distance between you and over to your thigh, running warmly over it.

"What are you doing?" you asked coyly, watching his hand travel higher.

"You said no sex until we got out of town. You never said I couldn't do this," he replied. Before you could ask what 'this' was, he answered by pulling your leg towards him, effectively granting him access to you and sliding a finger inside easily. The feel of his leather jacket against your otherwise bare skin and the anticipation of Dean while you'd waited for him had gotten you more than ready. You gasped and let your head fall back.

"Oh my god," you laughed. "You need to pay attention to the road."

"I am nothing if not a multi-tasker, Y/N," Dean replied, stealing a look at you as he moved his finger in and out of you smoothly. You rose your hips high to meet him and grasped at the door handle tightly. He was skilled, knew just where to touch you to make you moan, when to pick up the pace and when to slow it down even when you begged him not to. He made it good, adding a second finger, pumping deeply with them as your breath caught in your throat.

"Dean! There's a cop," you managed to get out in a breath, seeing the state patrol car passing you on the other lane.

"Is this illegal?" Dean asked, not stopping his ministrations.

"Shit, it should be," you said, and he laughed.

"Shoulder of the road of some hick town looking a little better now, sweetheart?" he teased, curling his fingers inside of you just a bit. You moaned loudly, turning your head and biting down on the seatbelt. It was too much, you wanted more of him. You grabbed at his hand, stopping him, and unbuckled your seatbelt.

"What are you doing?" he asked. You slid over towards him and pulled his face to yours, pulling his bottom lip between your teeth, biting down hard enough that you knew it would sting. "I'm driving, you maniac," he said as you kissed his neck, feeling the scratch of his stubble against your lips.

"You started this," you replied, grabbing at the hem of his shirt and pulling it clumsily over his head. He swerved a bit, losing sight of the road for a moment until you had the shirt off and tossed into the back.

"Jesus," he laughed. You were nearly in his lap, pressing your lips across his shoulders, his chest, down his stomach, before traveling back up to his face. You moved your mouth to his ear.

"Pull. Over," you said. "Now." Dean didn't need to be told twice, slowing the Impala and stopping under the shelter of some ancient oaks. He turned the engine off and the only sound was the rain on the roof and the two of you as your breathing picked up. You straddled his lap, situating yourself between him and the steering wheel; a tight fit but that only urged you on. He unzipped his leather jacket and slid his hands over your shoulders shedding you of it and leaving you naked. It turned you on more than you would have expected, being there on the side of the road, there with Dean in the Impala.

You let your hands slide down his chest, across his abdomen, feeling the muscles tighten under your cold fingers.

"Are you always freezing?" he asked, rubbing his hands swiftly up and down your arms.

"Shut up," you breathed, working his belt open. You undid his button and zipper before pulling him free of his pants and boxers. He was hard for you already and he held your hips as you rose up and lowered yourself down onto him. He ran his hands to your behind and then up your back before tangling in your hair as you rose and fell over him, clutching to his shoulders.

You gasped, pulling back to look at him.

"What?" he asked. "What is it?"

"I have a playlist for this," you said and turned to reach your ipod.

"Holy hell, don't _go_ anywhere," he growled, pulling you back to him, and you laughed against him as he kissed your lips. He laid you down back towards the passenger side. You helped him all the way out of his pants and boxers, kicking them off with his shoes before he entered you again, using his leverage on top of you to push in deeper.

You slid your fingers down his back, looking him in the eye as you moved together. He brought his face close to you, his nose brushing yours until your breath mingled together. This was your favorite time with him; not just because of the sex, though you'd always remember the shock you'd felt the first time with him, wondering why the hell you'd been wasting your time with anyone else but Dean. You loved this time because you felt like so much communication was able to pass between you, with him so close. With _Dean Winchester_, the man who wasn't always great with words but could say so much more with a touch. The way he'd memorized everything that made you moan or cry out, knew how to make you say his name, loving every noise you made in between. You could feel everything between you, trying to find a name for it. It felt almost like… No, you weren't going to be the one to say it. You stretched up to kiss him again while he ran his hands over your breasts and down your belly, putting his fingers to use once more to intensify your pleasure.

"I can't—Dean, I can't," you said as your hips began to move sporadically against him.

"It's ok. I'm close. I'm close," he replied.

"Hurry. Ah—Dean," you let out with a moan. "Please. I want to together." You were finding it difficult to form full sentences, every thought flustered by Dean's pacing, filling you up in every way. You closed your eyes, letting yourself feel everything, hear everything. The rain had subsided a bit, pattering on the roof loudly still. You managed to hold out a little longer, waiting until Dean let you know he was there before you gave in, surrendering yourself to your release. You clutched at his arms, digging your fingers into the muscles there as you came together, something you'd only been able to accomplish a few times before. It was so much better that way, the warmth pooling between your legs and in your lower belly as you helped one another finish. You locked eyes with him, breathing hard, as you came down. He smoothed your hair from your forehead; the humidity from the weather and your efforts in the car had steamed up the windows and covered you both in a slick layer of sweat. He leaned down to kiss you once more as he pulled out, reaching down for his tshirt and using it to gently wipe you clean between your legs.

You both clambered into the backseat where there was room to stretch out and he held his arms open to you, where you lay atop him, letting your breathing return to normal. He'd brought his jacket back with him and draped it over you, running his fingers lightly down your back and over the leather.

"Thank you," you murmured sleepily against him.

"You kiddin' me? Thank_ you_," he said. "Got my girl wearing my leather jacket, laying in Baby. What could be better?" You laughed softly and let out a yawn, pressing your feet to him again.

"Seriously? After all that your feet are still cold?" he asked, amusement in his voice.

"Sorry," you laughed. He pulled you tighter to him.

"It's ok. I kind of like that I can keep you warm."

For the second night, the two of you didn't get a hotel room. You stayed there in his car as the rain faded away into the night, lying in the backseat under the stars. He watched as your eyes grew heavy, finally shutting, and your breathing became slow and even, your head resting comfortably on his chest.

"Y/N? You hear me?" he whispered. No response. He thought about it a moment, wondering how it would feel.

"I love you," he said, finally, quietly as he could, testing the words out. They felt right. They felt true. He smiled softly at your dreaming face. He wouldn't be the first to say it. It didn't count if you were asleep, he thought to himself, pulling his jacket more snugly around your shoulders, but he knew he was lying to himself.

He stepped off the precipice and closed his eyes, praying harder than he ever had before that you were falling with him.


	2. 11:11

"Dean, wake up! Dean," you whispered right next to his ear, pushing him a little bit as you spoke.

"I'm awake," he said, eyes still closed.

"Liar."

"I am. What's up?" he asked.

"It's almost 11:11," you smiled down at him, propping your hand on his chest.

"And?"

"Make a wish," you said, leaning close to his ear once more. You pushed your hands underneath his back, feeling him flinch a little at their temperature, but his lips curled up into a smile.

"I wish you'd stop using me as your personal heater," he said.

"No you don't."

"I wish you had a playlist for this," he teased.

"I _do_!" you replied gleefully, moving to get off the bed, but he pulled you back to him before you could get far.

"I wish we were back at the beach," he answered finally. You laid down again, head on his chest, and smiled at the memory. "It's been long enough back on the job that we could justify another trip away."

You raised your eyebrows up at him, though his eyes were still closed. You'd had to talk him into the last one.

"We can't leave Sam alone tomorrow. Maybe after that, though," you said quietly, tracing lines over Dean's tshirt.

"Maybe after that," Dean agreed sleepily. He was back asleep in no time, his arm still around you, and you stayed quiet. You pressed your cold feet against his legs and watched the clock by the bed change. 11:12. You'd missed your own wish.

—

You woke the next morning before Dean and drank him in, loving the way he looked when he was asleep. His face never seemed so worry free as it did when he was deep in whatever lands his dreams conjured up for him. You almost didn't want to wake him; just slip out of bed and let him sit this one out. You knew he wouldn't want it that way, though, so you opted for waking him in your usual manner instead. You peppered small kisses over his chest, up to his neck, and finally to his mouth.

"Mmm, morning," he mumbled against you.

"Morning." Normally he was the one making the two of you late, but this morning you initiated it; running your hands up under his shirt, over his abdomen and up his chest, to his shoulders as he moved his mouth slowly with yours, lingering against your lips.

Sam pounded on the bedroom door, loud and explosive, startling you both. "Gotta get a move on, guys!" he called, and you heard his footsteps retreating down the hall.

"Right on cue," Dean sighed.

"Can't we just stay in bed?" you groaned. He ran his hand over your cheek and gave you a small smile.

"We can get right back in when we get back. How's that?" he asked. Your stomach twisted. You hadn't been looking forward to this hunt, it had been weighing on your mind for a few nights and Dean was well aware. He just knew you well enough not to comment on it. He gave you another kiss before getting up and you followed him reluctantly, forcing yourself to shuffle your feet to the bathroom.

You got ready together as if you'd been doing it all your lives, passing him the toothpaste when you were done with it, leaning out of the way so the other could rinse. He handed you some toilet paper when you cut your leg shaving, your foot propped up on the sink. You smiled at him in thanks and dabbed at the small cut, washing the small bit of blood off.

You sat beside one another on the edge of the bed and strapped your boots on. Once dressed, he stood and began to make the bed but you stopped him.

"Hey, we're just going to get right back in it when we get back home, right?" you asked, and kissed him on the cheek. He dropped the sheet in his hand and followed you out to the library, leaving the bed unmade behind him.

Sam was ready to leave when you got out to him. He was eager to get this over with, feeling much the same as you it seemed. He handed you and Dean each a pair of glasses.

"Hellhound ready," he said.

"Let's hope we don't need these," you replied, putting them into your jacket pocket.

"When was the last time things actually went our way?" Dean asked and you sighed. He was right. You just wanted this to be done.

You drove in silence out of town. Sam took the backseat, letting you sit up front with Dean. He held your hand as he drove, squeezing it every few minutes and you wondered if he even realized he was doing it. You were all tense. Demons were bad enough on their own, especially in a group, but add in the rumor that there were going to be hellhounds and you were all on edge. The glasses would give you some help, but hellhounds were hellhounds. You'd seen the haunted look Dean got in his eye when he thought of the beasts. The way they'd ripped him apart so long ago, you couldn't blame him. He squeezed your hand again.

The building where the demons were camped out was sitting, or rather leaning, a few miles outside of town. The parking lot was overgrown with weeds now; nature taking back what was once its own. The windows were broken out, the facade was rusting; it was the kind of place that would have made you believe in ghosts before you were a hunter with solid proof.

It was morning still, late morning with dark clouds forming in the west. It was going to rain later without a doubt, you could smell it in the air moving towards you. The three of you sat camped out in the Impala all day, passing around binoculars as the morning turned to afternoon, turned to evening, turned to night, but you'd been able to glean nothing.

"They might know we're here," Sam said, lowering the binoculars from his eyes.

"They might not," you offered, but didn't believe your own words. Cloud-to-cloud lightning flashed in the dark sky.

"I just want to know how many hellhounds they brought," Dean muttered. You closed your eyes, wishing Dean's wish from last night had come true. You thought of your unmade bed waiting for you safe at the bunker and steeled yourself.

"Let's get this over with," you said, checking your glasses were still in your pocket before getting out. The three of you retrieved your guns, your blades, everything you could easily carry that could in some way harm a demon. Sam had even rigged up a few small explosives, handing them now to you and Dean very carefully.

"These have a short fuse so it's emergency only, ok? Worst case," he said seriously before letting them go.

"Can't we just roll in with these?" Dean asked, turning his over in his hand.

"We don't know how many there are, Dean. That might just piss them off," Sam replied.

"Kidding, Sammy. Kidding," Dean said, but you could see how serious he was really taking this. He was a soldier now. You all were, standing shoulder to shoulder with guns ready as you strode forward into the dark building.

—

It was so much worse than you'd thought, and you'd thought about it a lot in the past few days. They'd been everywhere, black smoke circling around overhead like a second night sky as soon as you'd entered. They'd come in three meatsuits, taking over when one of them died so that it seemed an endless pursuit of the same three people over and over. You kept dropping them just to see the rise again. You had hacked and slashed and shot at them, throwing holy water and watching them sizzle and burn. You were exhausted as you crouched behind a crumbling wall between Sam and Dean now. You were safe for the moment, until they made another break for you, but none of you had gotten off clean.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," you insisted, pushing Dean away as he tried to staunch the bleeding in your left forearm. He had a gash of his own to match, running along his shoulder, and Sam was limping badly.

You pulled your jacket collar up to wipe the blood out of your eyes, hearing thunder rumble distantly outside.

"Kind of the perfect day to die, huh?" you asked, looking between Sam and Dean. The smoke had stopped making figure eights overhead near the roof and you were pretty sure there were only three demons left now, each possessing a person, but you were nearly positive they'd brought hellhounds, you just weren't sure where they were at the moment.

"You can't erase us, you bastards!" Dean yelled as he heard movement from one of the far corners.

"Hey, I'm going to see if I can get a look into the other room, see what we're dealing with," you whispered.

"No, Y/N…" Dean tried to stop you as you crawled away.

"I'm just going to look," you hissed back at him. You strafed along the wall, making your way to the nearest room a few yards away, and peered over the broken glass of the window. Your glasses had gotten broken during the fight and you were wearing Dean's now. You held back a gasp as you looked inside. Three of them. Three hellhounds, pacing the room. They were terrifying and gigantic—all muscle.

You looked back at Sam and Dean, worrying the inside of your cheek with your teeth. You could take demons, but three hellhounds—the odds weren't good in that fight. This couldn't be it. They were both so good. Dean was everything. You were surprised how quickly the plan came to you, without a second thought. Of course you had to do this. Sam and Dean weren't going to surrender, that wasn't an option. Not for any of you. There was nothing left to do, nothing but this one plan and you had to carry it out alone. You would give them hell. You would try. You just needed to find the strength to see it through.

You thought of lying under the pier with Dean, driving down the long, long road and singing your song as loud as you could, watching his eyes crinkle as he laughed. You thought of being in the Impala, the rain pelting the roof as the two of you moved together, steaming the windows and lying afterward under his leather jacket. The two of you falling asleep like that, right there on the side of the road. That was it, then. Dean. Dean would be your strength as he always had been. At least if this was it you could say… You shook your head. You hadn't said it enough—had you ever actually said it? Too late now.

You crawled back to them, looking at their expectant and beaten faces. You reached out and brushed some debris from Dean's hair, letting your hand trail down his face, your thumb running over his jawline lightly. You couldn't be obvious about this, or it would never work. So you pulled your hand away and cleared your throat.

"Well?"

"It's clear," you said. "There's just the three demons left."

"First good news of the day. Three black-eyed sons of bitches we can handle," Dean said. You could see his spirit returning, the fight in his eyes. "Y/N, you go take cover in there and watch our backs from behind that wall."

You closed your eyes for just a moment. Just as you'd thought. Dean would send you into the room that was safest…or the room that he thought was the safest, trying to protect you til the very last. This would work.

"Sammy can surprise stunt demon number one over there and I'll take down the one by the door. Whoever finishes first gets dibs on the last one," he grinned. Sam nodded at the plan and you swallowed the lump in your throat, unable to tear your eyes from Dean. His green eyes were ablaze with early victory. You knew why the demons were biding their time, why they weren't just taking you out now. They were going to wait until you were in the open and sic their little pets on you.

_Eyes look your last_, you thought, letting yours rove over all of Dean's features. His green eyes, the small lines at the corners of them, the graceful slope of his nose, his stubble—the way it felt on your lips when you kissed him…. Your heart was beating wildly and you feared Dean would hear it.

"Ready?" he asked, and started to move but you grabbed the back of his shirt, yanking him back to you.

He turned his head and you pulled him in, kissing him harder than you had in a long time, throwing yourself into it completely, almost wishing he would guess at your plan and stop you. He was confused but he allowed himself to sink into it; Sam looked pointedly away. Dean's hands were on your back, splayed out, folding you to him, your lips pressed together so tightly you thought you could bruise. You couldn't let yourself cry, not now when you were so close. He broke the kiss.

"What was that for?" he asked.

"A preview for later," you replied, the lie coming easily to you. Make him believe it.

"Well let's get this show on the road then," he smiled at you. You waited one second, feeling a tear slip down your cheek as his back turned to you, heading out of cover. You forced yourself to do the same, putting one foot in front of the other. Events were in motion now; you had to do this and you had to do it quickly. You heard Sam take down the first demon behind you before you even got into the room, shutting the doors with the small broken-glass windows behind you.

Growling. You heard it right away and turned, seeing the dogs. Their eyes glowed red; embers in a dying fire. Dean should have made it to the far corner now—he moved fast. He should be far enough away, killing the other demon. You pulled the small, handmade explosive from your jacket along with your lighter and held them as the dogs walked slowly closer.

"You can't erase us," you repeated Dean's words to yourself, letting them soothe you, letting them still your shaking hands, and lit the fuse. You threw the device a few yards away towards the dogs who were growing ever closer. Sam was right about the short fuse.

Sam and Dean had just pulled double duty on the third and final demon, watching it fall to the ground when an amazingly loud explosion echoed from the other room, shattering any remaining glass from the windows and sending dust and debris flying, filling the air with grey. They were knocked back, stumbling a few feet, but neither fell to the ground and they both covered their mouths with their sleeves as they began to immediately hack and cough in the dust-filled air.

"Y/N!" Dean bellowed as soon as he'd realized what had happened. He didn't think, running right into ground zero with Sam on his heels. Neither of them could see a thing as the dust began to settle slowly, but Sam tripped as he entered the room and looked back, glasses still on, to see the corpse of a giant, black dog.

"Dean! Hellhounds!"

"Dead?"

"I think so."

"How many?"

"I see two…no, scratch that. Three," Sam responded, looking around. But you were still nowhere to be seen. Dean called your name louder, searching the area in a panic. Maybe you'd gotten out, maybe you would come walking in the door and tell them to get their asses back to the car, he thought. He kept searching, yelling your name with fading hope, and finally spotted you lying feet away. His heart was racing as he ran to your side but he didn't see any blood and let himself believe for a moment that you were alright, that you'd simply been knocked onto your back from the blow.

He slid to his knees by your side, taking note of the debris that had fallen around you, on top of you, and began heaving great pieces of building away.

He scooped his arms gently underneath you when you were clear, willing to skip the do-it-yourself hunter care and take you straight to the hospital, but immediately felt the brokenness of your body, the way nearly every bone seemed to move unnaturally under his touch. He laid you back down as carefully as he could. A broken back for sure, at minimum. He looked to your face; your eyes were open now but glazed, faraway and not focused on him; your breaths were coming shallow and quick.

"Y/N? Can you hear me?" Dean asked, running his hand gently over your shoulder and down your arm. Everything was broken, everything was glass. Sam came to crouch down next to him, taking in your form, how still you were lying there on the concrete.

"Dean…"

"Don't touch her! Give her some space," Dean snapped, uncovering his mouth with his sleeve. Sam stood and backed up, putting his weight on his good leg as he watched Dean take your hand in his.

"You gotta listen to me," Dean said, placing his hands on either side of yours. "This isn't it. This isn't it." He shook his head as he spoke, looking up and down your body. When had you become porcelain?

Your eyes slid over to his and he felt the smallest bit of hope spark within him.

"Dean," you said. Your tongue was heavy in your mouth. You could see Dean holding your hand but couldn't feel it. Couldn't feel anything below your neck. "We have to go," you went on. Your words were slow coming out, though, sticking in your throat and slurring as they exited.

"We'll get you out of here, baby," Dean said firmly. If you were willing to get out then he would get you out, come hell or high water. He looked behind him, trying to think of a way to move you.

"We'll have to pay for late checkout otherwise," you mumbled. He turned back to you, feeling the tears brimming hot in his eyes.

"What?" he asked, voice thick.

"The checkout time. We have to go or they'll charge us," you repeated.

Porcelain. So that's what a shattering heart felt like. Dean ran his other hand down his face, scrubbing the tears away before nodding down at you.

"We have to keep driving down the beach, right?" he asked quietly.

"The beach," you repeated, blinking slow. Dean's bottom lip trembled and he swallowed hard, struggling to see through the tears that kept filling his vision. The lump in his throat was painful and he clenched his teeth together. "It's been a long road," you continued and your eyes slid from his again, looking upwards at the dust filled air above you.

"Y/N, that night in the car… That night it rained, after you fell asleep I told you—I told you I loved you," Dean said, choking on his words. He stopped fighting the tears and they fell thick into your hair. Nothing he said was registering anymore, though, he could see that. He bowed his head and took in a shuddering breath, sitting silently by your side as your breathing became more sporadic. All he could do was watch and hope you were back on that road, back in that hotel by the beach and not in pain, not broken beyond fixing here in some godforsaken warehouse. It took a few minutes, but he never took his eyes away from you. Finally though, you took three last breaths, rapid fire, before your chest settled down and didn't rise again.

Dean stared down at you, his own breath gone. Your eyes were still open and he stared down at them, into the emptiness, memorizing their color before pressing his fingers lightly over them and helping them close. Dean shook harder than he ever had before as he gathered your body in his arms, cradling you to his chest. He sat there with you, your arms limp at your sides, and ran his fingers over your hair, down your back, over and over again as his tears ran streaks down his dust-covered face. Sam shed his own tears silently behind his brother, letting him hold you while he kept his distance.

Dean pressed his lips to yours, one last time before they grew cold and ran his thumb over your cheek before standing with you in his arms. He walked past Sam, through the dusty haze and past the hellhounds, past the demons' bodies and through the doors. He forced his feet to move. He carried you to the Impala and laid your body softly in the back, covering you with his leather jacket before getting into the driver's seat.

Sam limped behind him and slid into the passenger side, not saying a word as Dean drove away, leaving the crumbling and broken grey building behind. The Impala's clock slid past 11:11 unnoticed.


	3. Somewhere In My Car

Sam and Dean arrived back at the bunker in silence and Sam watched as Dean moved around to the backseat, taking your body in his arms once more, leaving the door open behind him and walking toward the bunker. He carried you down the stairs without a word, heading instinctively towards the room that you'd shared, but stopped in his tracks when he saw the unmade bed, the sheets pulled back.

"_Hey, we're just going to get right back in it when we get back home, right?" _Your lips were on his cheek, hand on his wrist.

He nearly collapsed, feeling his knees quake beneath him, but he forced himself to turn and take you to your old room—the one you never used. He laid you down and tucked his jacket closer around your body. Sam stepped in and touched Dean's shoulder, making him flinch.

"Hey. Dean, you should rest," he said gently. Dean was swaying on his feet. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe none of it was real, just a long…long dream. He let Sam lead him back to his own room, to that damn unmade bed, and laid down on it, keeping to his side. Sam left and shut the door behind him. Your nightgown was laid across the foot of the bed and Dean trembled as he lay there, shutting his eyes tightly, trying to will it away. He let unconsciousness pull him under.

He woke hours later to the dark room, eyes snapping open. He was coated in a sheen of sweat. It was too hot, it was too much. You'd always put your cold feet on him at night, pushed your icy hands under his back, under his shirt, falling asleep like that and sharing your temperatures. He wiped his forehead and licked his lips as his mind reeled.

It didn't have to end like this, he thought. He'd done it before.

It was early morning, a little after two according to his watch, and he worked quickly, collecting the items he needed into a small, tin box. He would talk to a thousand demons if he had to. He would burn through them all. Box complete, he headed down the hallway, clutching it in his hand. He was going to walk straight past your room—-he didn't want to look in on you again until your eyes were open, but he saw that the door was ajar and forced himself to peer inside. His leather jacket was laying on the otherwise empty bed. Your body was gone.

Dean stalked down the hall, not daring to believe it, and found Sam in the library. He'd left the lights in the room off but Dean could see an empty glass and a bottle of whiskey in front of him.

"What did you do?" Dean demanded. Sam looked up, his eyes were red and his leg was bandaged now.

"Dean, listen—"

"What did you do, Sam?"

Sam hesitated a moment, taking a deep breath.

"I burned her body," he said quietly. Dean's box fell to the floor, the photo of him and you falling out along with other objects, clattering over the wood. He felt his chest tighten up, having trouble breathing.

"I gave her a hunter's funeral. It was the right thing," Sam continued, pushing his chair out and standing.

"You can't—she can't come back without a body," Dean said; his voice was quaking. The room was spinning. Nothing was right.

"I know."

Dean's fists were clenched by his sides and he walked to Sam in two long steps, and punched him in the jaw hard enough to send him stumbling back. Sam held his hands up, unwilling to fight back.

"I had to do it while you were out so you wouldn't do anything stupid," Sam said firmly, eyeing the box on the floor. "It's not what she would have wanted for you, Dean."

"Well, I don't want her _dead_, Sam!" Dean bellowed. "I didn't want…" he raised his fist again, taking a deep breath, but lost his fight as quickly as it had come. He backed up a few steps, staring at his brother, before turning and heading back to his room.

He flipped the light on and looked around. Photos of the two of you covered sections of all four walls; it was an art project you'd started weeks ago. Trying to make the room brighter, that was how you'd put it. Your face smiled at him from everywhere and he felt as though he was going to be sick, doubling in on himself for a moment and pulling in deep breaths with his hands on his knees.

Once he was sure he had enough control over himself, he stood tall again and walked to the nearest wall, and began ripping the photos from it. He scratched his fingers down the brick, scratching them bloody as he tore the memories away, but he didn't care. Photographs fluttered to the floor around him. He turned to the framed picture on his desk and threw it as hard as he could across the room where it shattered against the wall. He was out of his mind with it, manic as he moved around the room to tear all the photos down. He just needed them gone. He worked until the walls were bare and exposed. Empty.

"Dean, what the hell…" Sam rounded the doorway a moment later and found Dean on his knees on the floor, surrounded by pictures. Some of them were ripped from his efforts and there was glass on the floor in the far corner. He took a few tentative steps in.

"Do you think she knew?" Dean asked, not looking up from the photo he held in his hands. "Did she know what she was doing? I mean, she was wearing the glasses. She had to have seen them when she first looked in that room." Dean's voice was broken as he spoke, almost too quiet to hear. He raised his head to look at his brother, seeing the bruise forming already from where he'd hit him.

"Did she know, Sammy?"

"I don't know," Sam answered gently. "She loved you, Dean. Three hellhounds would have torn us all apart."

Dean shook his head and a tear fell to the floor. "But she wasn't supposed to…" He swallowed hard and let the photo fall from his fingers, landing face down in front of him.

He stood and walked past Sam quickly, down the hall and through the library where he grabbed his keys from the table. He continued up the stairs as his brother watched on from below, and out into the dark morning air.

He got into the car and started driving, trying to leave his mind behind. He couldn't be there anymore; he wanted to bleach everything away. He'd consider losing everything if it meant this pain would leave him, too. It was too much to bear.

It wasn't better in the Impala, though. The only difference was that he was moving, traveling far and fast from the bunker on an empty two-lane highway. He was still remembering everything. He could feel your hand on his leg, back on the night of your first date, driving around town after dinner. Neither of you had been ready to say goodnight. Neither of you ready to let it end.

He was back in bed with you, under the sheets while you gave him that look he'd memorized—the one where you were right on the line of amusement and tolerance with something he was saying; it was usually accompanied by an eye roll and a smile.

"_We're different. We're special."_

"_You can have me anywhere else."_

"_What would you do if something were to…mysteriously happen to all your tapes?"_

Dean looked over and could swear he heard your laughter as the wind blew your hair around from the open window. He pressed his foot down hard on the brake and stopped on the side of the road before wiping his eyes with the back of his hand hard enough to see stars.

He leaned over to open the glove compartment, rummaging through for his flask but his fingers landed on something else. Your ipod. He clutched it tightly and brought it to his forehead, clenching his eyes shut before making himself turn it on, scrolling through all of your playlists. You'd been so deliberate with each one, picking songs for every occasion. He stopped when he saw one labeled 'Dean'. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't bring himself to look through it, staring down at his name for a moment longer before scrolling on. PCH Mix, it was still there and Dean felt his stomach twist as he tapped on it, plugging the ipod into the jack Sam had installed so long ago, and pressed play on the first song. He wondered why the hell he was doing this to himself but couldn't seem to stop.

He took a deep breath and pulled back onto the road as the words filled the car with more memories.

"_It's good, right? Beachy!"_

"_Oh, very beachy."_

_**I love you when you're singing that song, and I got a lump in my throat 'cause you're gonna sing the words wrong.**_

Dean thought of driving on that rainy night, teasing you as you sat next to him clad only in his leather jacket. The way your eyes shone as he touched you, letting your head fall back and eyes close, your hair still sprinkled with sand from the beach.

"_What happened to you saying this wasn't special?"_

"_I guess you changed my mind."_

He thought of the way you'd kissed him as he drove, damning the consequences; grabbing his shirt and pulling it up and over his head before he'd finally pulled over.

_**I just wanna, I just wanna know**_

_**If you're gonna, if your'e gonna stay**_

_**I just gotta, I just gotta know**_

_**I can't have it, I can't have it any other way**_

Dean could barely see the road anymore through his blurred vision, gripping the wheel so tightly in his hands. He could almost feel you breathing beside him. He thought of the two of you laying across one another in the backseat as the rain subsided on the roof above.

"_It's ok. I kind of like that I can keep you warm."_

He'd waited until you were asleep before he'd said it for the first time, those three words. Words he couldn't bear now. They were too heavy, they were too broken. Each beat of his own heart was broken, too, sending new, aching fissures through him with each pump.

It was too much. He stopped the song abruptly, pulling the ipod out and dropping it to the passenger's side, letting the car go silent once more as he took in gasping, ragged breaths. He wrapped an arm around himself. You'd always held his pieces together for him and he felt unglued now, ripped wide open. There was no playlist for this.

He could turn back…go home. But the thought of the bed where he'd held you, the kisses you'd woken him each morning with, and all the pictures in that empty space… He couldn't do it. He looked down, noting that the gas tank was nearly full, and pressed down harder on the pedal, driving further away and letting the road unfurl lonely behind him like a long and endless black ribbon.


	4. For Blue Skies

Dean's lips were insistent on yours as he ran his hands through your hair. He was slow and lingering, kissing you like he had all the time in the world, like neither of you had anywhere else to be. He was surrounded by you, wrapped up in your embrace.

You pulled back and smiled at him.

"We have to stop meeting like this," you teased.

"No, we don't," he replied and gathered you in again, running his tongue lightly along your lips, tracing the curve of them. You pushed back gently, keeping your hand on his chest.

"Dean."

He shook his head at you, covering your hand with his own.

"You have to wake up."

"No. Don't go. Don't go," he said quietly. You moved close to his ear, your hair brushing against his cheek, and he shut his eyes.

"Wake up, Dean."

Dean brought his hand hard and fast over his phone, slamming into it and finding the 'dismiss' button, stopping the shrill chirping of the alarm. It was the only way he was able to wake now, without you beside him. He slept until noon most days, sometimes not able to drag his feet from the bed at all. He moved now, though, letting his booted feet hit the floor. The taste of dream root lingered in his mouth and he washed it away with a long pull of whiskey from his flask.

He looked at his phone, still blinking even though it was silent now. Six missed calls, and that voicemail icon that had been lingering there accusatorially for about three days now…or was it a week? He sat heavily at the motel room's small table and dialed into his mailbox while he rubbed at his bleary eyes.

"Dean, it's me. Can you just call me when you get this? Send a carrier pigeon? Anything. I caught word about that nest you cleared out, man. It's too much. It sounds like you're getting out of control again. Just…call me."

Dean pressed a button on his phone.

"Message deleted." There were three more, all very similar, all went deleted as well until the icon disappeared. Dean stood and walked stiffly out of his room towards the lobby, waiting until the overweight man at the desk turned his attentions to him.

"Another week," Dean said, putting some cash down on the counter.

"Good idea to hunker down right now with the storm coming," the man said, beginning to type at his computer.

"What? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Rain. There's a big rain storm coming. It's supposed to be bad," he replied. Dean ran a hand over his face. Not rain. Not a storm, not now.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered. He pulled the cash back towards him and pocketed it. "Never mind. I'm checking out. Now."

"Scared of a storm?" the man joked, but stopped immediately under the look Dean gave him. Scared wasn't the right word.

Not fifteen minutes later, Dean was back in the Impala, gunning it down the two-lane road, unsure of where the hell he was going. He felt tired. Sleeping with dream root didn't lend itself much to the way of actual rest. Dean thought to himself that he wouldn't mind having a dreamless sleep, one that he didn't have to wake up from.

_Death_, he thought wryly. _That's called death._

It was that thought alone, the thought that he wasn't actively trying to kill himself but that he wouldn't mind just not being alive anymore, that pushed him to take the next turn onto the highway and head home for the first time in a year.

It felt strange to be going back, traveling those same roads without having to think about it; the muscle memory helping him drive by habit, leaving the dark storm clouds behind him, flashing lightning in the distance. Dean pulled up in front of the bunker, unchanged, and knocked on the door around eight that night. It felt strange to knock, but he felt it would be stranger not to after so long away.

Sam answered the door hesitantly, pulling it open a few inches at first. Dean noticed him put his gun away quickly, his face melting into a look of relief as he recognized the haggard face of his older brother. He pulled him into a tight hug, but Dean kept his arms at his side, his face expressionless.

"It's good to see you," Sam said, putting him at arm's length and taking in the sight of him. If he was shocked by what he saw, he gave no indication. Dean clenched his jaw and walked past Sam, down the stairs and looked around.

"See you've kept the place up," he remarked as he made it to the bottom.

"Yeah. Yeah. It's weird to be here alone, it was really weird at first. It feels a lot bigger when you're the only one here," he said. Dean nodded. "Are you…I mean, are you back for good, or…"

"I'm not staying," Dean replied, his back turned to Sam.

Sam shifted a bit on his feet, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, I'm glad you're back. I'm glad you came tonight."

Dean let out a breath through his nose, closing his eyes.

_Grey dust was settling in the air, his ears ringing from the explosion. He ran to it, heart pounding harder than it ever had. He searched through the debris to find you…lying motionless. Your eyes were glazed, back broken…everything broken. Thunder rumbled outside distantly. A storm coming._

"_Dean, we have to go." Your strangled words, your chest moving almost imperceptibly, working towards its last breath until…_

Dean cleared his throat and shouldered his duffel bag a little higher up.

"Yeah. Me too," he said.

He walked through the library and down the hall, unable to wait for Sam to say anymore about it, afraid he might bolt back through the door if he did. Sam followed a few paces behind as Dean came to a stop in front of his old room, standing in the doorway and looking in.

His leather jacket was hanging now on the back of the desk chair, and the mess he'd left was cleaned up, the photos he'd ripped from the walls stacked neatly on the nightstand. But everything else was the same.

"I didn't do much," Sam said behind him. "I didn't want to throw anything out."

Dean laughed humorlessly, shaking his head slightly.

"What?" Sam asked.

"You didn't have that problem with her body, though, did you?" Dean asked, and walked into the room, shutting the door behind him.

—

He ventured out about an hour later, finding Sam sitting in the library, just as he had that night a year ago. He nearly stopped, overwhelmed with the memory of it, crawling under his skin; a parasite. But he continued on and sat across from his brother. Sam poured him a glass of whiskey to match his own, and pushed it towards Dean. Neither spoke about the exchange in front of Dean's room, sitting in silence for a moment as they sipped their drinks.

"Have you seen Cas?" Sam asked when the quiet became too heavy.

"No," Dean replied. "Not since…"

"Since you broke his nose?" Dean was silent. "He wouldn't have been able to help. The fact that you were _able_ to break his nose at all showed that."

Dean took another swig of his drink and set it down in front of him, turning the glass around on the wooden table. Sam waited but Dean said nothing, so he tried again.

"I can't believe it's been a year," he said quietly.

"Sam." Dean said sharply, looking at him with heavy eyes. "Can we skip the whole reminiscing thing? Just don't."

Sam stared at his brother a moment before nodding. Dean drank the rest of his glass in one go, draining it before standing up once more. He couldn't do this.

"Hey, man. Don't go. We can talk about something else," Sam implored.

"I'm tired, Sammy. I drove all day. I'm going to bed, we can catch up tomorrow," Dean said, and walked away before Sam could argue.

He got to his room, shutting the door before going to rummage through his bag for his dream root.

"Dammit," he muttered, pulling out the empty bag. He hadn't been out in weeks; he hadn't been paying attention. Had other things on his mind. Like the date. It was the only way he'd been able to see you, though. The only way he'd been sleeping.

He eyed that old leather jacket on the desk chair and wondered… He walked to it, clutching it in his hands, and brought it to his face, breathing in deeply. Barely perceptible, but there you were. Your shampoo, your smell still clinging to it. He had to back up and sit down on the edge of the bed as he held it in his shaking hands. He pulled it swiftly on, wrapping it tightly around himself, and glanced over at the stack of photos sitting nearby.

There was that smile of yours shining up at him, the one that sent an ache through Dean that nothing else compared to. The top photo was the two of you sitting in his car, your arm stretched out in front to take it, and he could feel that familiar lump rising in his throat, sticking there painfully.

"Hey, baby," he whispered, touching his finger to the corner of the picture. His vision blurred with tears and he wiped at them, turning away.

He went back to his bag and pulled your ipod from it; he'd kept it charged every day, scrolling through it like a habit. His thumb lingered over the playlist you'd marked 'Dean', trembling so close to pressing it, finally seeing what songs you'd picked for him. A playlist for everything. But he scrolled on. He couldn't open it; he knew how the songs inside would be ruined for him if he did. They would send him reeling if he were to hear them in a Gas'n'Sip some inconsequential Tuesday, or in some small-town's convenience store. He just couldn't do it.

He laid down in bed, on top of the covers, holding the ipod in his hands, and sank into his first sleep without the aid of dream root in months, thinking as he drifted off how easy it had actually been.

—

"Dean." He turned. He would always respond to that voice, he had no other choice.

"Y/N. What are you doing here?" he asked. He was used to seeing a glow around you when he dreamed, fuzzy on the edges. That had been happening for a few months now and he worried it meant he was losing your memory. But here, now, you were as sharp as ever. Almost real.

"You tell me. This is _your_ dream, dummy," you smiled at him.

"I can't dream of you without the dream root," he insisted.

"Guess you can," you shrugged. "You've been working that lucid dreaming muscle of yours. Highly underrated muscle in guys," you continued with a wink and a grin. Dean shook his head.

"God, I miss you."

"I'm still around."

"No. You're not. One god damn year and it still hurts the same."

"Hey. It'll get easier," you said, bringing your hand to cup his face. He leaned into it; the only thing he ever wanted, the only thing he ever had. "I swear it will. Remember that with every piece of you."

"That's the problem," he said, taking your hand in his own. "I'm in _pieces_. I don't want it to get easier. I want _you_."

"Dean," you said softly.

"I'm constantly on the edge of l_osing it_, Y/N. What do I do? What do I do without you?" he asked, voice thick with unshed tears.

"Well, for one, you stop living in the shadows. You stop killing yourself," you said firmly. Dean watched you, unblinking, taking in as much of you as he could. He lived for these short, dreaming moments. Though you'd never been this harsh with him.

"And you have to let me go," you said.

"No." He squeezed your hand a little tighter. His dreaming heart beat wildly at the thought. You'd never told him this before. He didn't want this. "I won't do that. Not ever. What's my other option here?"

"You could wait for me to come home."

Dean shook his head, feeling tears streak down his face. "You're not coming home. So what do I do?" he asked again, more desperate.

You leaned forward and kissed him, pressing your lips to his firmly as he shut his eyes as tightly as he could, trying to hold onto you, trying to get to you somehow. He held onto the feeling of your lips, missing it like a place he was homesick for. It was a place he knew so deeply within himself that all roads led back to his own beating heart. A tear ran quickly down his face.

You pulled away, wrapping your hand around the nape of his neck, and brought your lips to his ear. He knew what you were going to say and his stomach twisted at the thought. It was too soon. He didn't want to hear you telling him to wake up; it was his least favorite part of every night.

Your lips brushed against his ear.

"Make a wish," you whispered.

Dean bolted upright in bed, sweating. He was always too hot, always, without you beside him. He was shaking; he'd never had a dream end like that. He'd never had a talk with you like that. He rubbed his hand over his face roughly. He needed more dream root.

He scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and looked around to see that he'd knocked your ipod off the bed in his startling awakening.

"Dammit." He got down on his knees and looked underneath, seeing it just under the bed beside an old photo of the two of you. Sam must have missed one. Dean pulled both items out; the photo had collected some dust, but he knew it well. It was your birthday, both of you in front of the cake he'd baked you. The photo had been in a frame once, before he'd thrown it against the wall and shattered it to pieces. He moved to rub it against his shirt to dust it off and noticed writing on the back. He turned it over in his hands and his breath caught as he took in your handwriting, dark and deliberate there in sharpie.

_Make a wish_

That hadn't been there before. Had it? He would have remembered; he'd been the one to put the photo in a frame as a gift for you. But it couldn't be new and he couldn't remember you ever having taken it out later to write on the back. He ran his thumb over the letters.

Dean glanced at his watch, lighting it up in his dark room. A little after eleven. He stood, thinking he'd find Sam and ask him; waking up if he needed to. He'd ask him why the hell he hadn't seen this photo when he'd cleaned up, if he'd noticed it at all. He started towards the door, but nearly tripped over his own feet when he saw the silhouette standing in the shadows by the door, and heard a voice he knew very well.

"Hello, Dean."


	5. Lost and Found

Dean watched as the figure stepped from the shadows and into the dim light, looking unchanged as ever with his pale skin and sharp nose, expression stoic as he stood resplendent in his black suit.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Dean asked. Death didn't answer immediately and Dean looked around his room, considering. Could Death even get into the bunker? His eyes fell onto the empty container in his bag that had once held his dream root.

"I'm asleep," Dean said with sudden realization. "None of this is even real. I'm still in that crap motel tripping out on dream root and _you're_ the one who steps out of the shadows? Stuff just isn't what it used to be," he said with a shake of his head.

"You _could_ be asleep," Death replied. "It _would_ explain the photograph." He looked down at Dean's hands, still clutching the photo with your writing scrawled on the back. "Then again, it could simply be_ one_ possible explanation."

"Look, man. I've got no cronuts or anything fried for you. If this is a dream I'd like to move it along. I'm not feeling real chatty tonight, so…" he trailed off, staring at the wax figure in front of him.

"Hmm, and you're usually so verbose," Death replied dryly. "I'm not here for a social call."

"Alright, then can you get to it?"

"Have you ever heard of the phoenix, Dean?" Death asked, clasping his hands behind his back.

"Yeah, supposed to be birds. But Sammy and I friggin' killed one and it…it's a long story," Dean said tiredly.

"They rise from the ashes," Death added.

"Alright. That's great. Thank you for the mythology lesson."

"It seems that they, too, have a hard time with the term 'rest in peace'." This got Dean's attention and his bleary eyes focused in an instant.

"Too?"

"That friend of yours—Y/N—"

"The one you took," Dean barked out, stepping closer, fire in his veins at the mention of your name, but Death stayed his ground.

"I'm afraid it wasn't me who took her."

"So you let one of your lackeys take her? _Her? _You son of a bitch." Dean ran a hand over his face and took a few steps back, knowing somewhere in the back of his exhausted mind that punching Death in the face would do him no favors, tempting as it may be.

"My boy, death—lowercase death, that is—will come for us all eventually…except for me, of course. It will take you, too. Does it really matter by which reaper's hand it happens? She's not been gone long in any case—"

"It's been a year," Dean interrupted, his face hard.

"Has it really?" Death asked, picking a stray thread from his suit. "Time does fly. Although, I suppose that makes this all rather poetic, then."

"Makes what poetic?"

"I came to talk to you about her," Death said, and Dean felt his stomach do a flip.

"What the hell could you have to say to me about Y/N?"

Death began pacing once more, slowly, calmly. "You were lucky, Dean. Many people never even meet someone with whom they share such a deep connection."

Dean scoffed, watching Death's route, back and forth. "We all end up alone in the end. Why should I be any different?" he asked, crossing his arms. That had always been the way for him. Alone.

"Why, indeed? Why should _she_ be? And yet she is," Death said.

"What are you talking about?" Dean hadn't had this long of a conversation about you since you'd died, or spoken your name in as long, and he felt the knife twisting in his gut, deep and painful as memories, long buried, resurfaced.

"Death doesn't suit her. As I said before, resting in peace certainly doesn't. She thrashes and rails against it every chance she gets. It becomes…tiresome," Death said, facing Dean now.

"You've seen her?"

"Of course."

"Why are you here? Cut the crap," Dean said, frustrated and wanting to get back into his dreams—his good dreams, of you.

"Why do you think?"

"Are you here for me? I'm taking up too much space? Take me with you, man. Call it game over if you want. I'll help you meet your quota," Dean said, holding his arms out on either side of him. Death observed him a moment, blinking his owl eyes slowly.

"Would you like that? To go gently into that good night?"

"I got no other plans," Dean said, face hard.

"Well, you _are _changed from when we last spoke." Dean reached back in his mind half-heartedly, unable to remember when the last time was, finding he didn't care. "It seems all the fight you had left went straight into Y/N. She's got quite the mouth on her," Death mused, and Dean almost smiled at the thought. Almost.

He remained silent instead, observing Death impatiently until he spoke again.

"You know, Dean, I actually used to be quite the romantic. A long time ago. A _very_ long time ago."

"Oh yeah? Curl up to some Nicholas Sparks at the end of the day? Or are you saying you're more into Casa Erotica?"

"I'm saying that I enjoy a good love story as much as the next," Death replied, his tone clipped, and Dean pressed his lips together to keep from back-talking once more. He let out a breath through his nose. "Things can get rather monotonous in my line. Lonely, even. I like to observe you all, living your lives down here, looking for someone to share your fleeting time with."

"So you're Cupid. Or you're like a demon—messing with people."

"Watch your tone with me. I don't need a bow and arrow or any paltry parlor tricks. I'm not cupid and I'm not a demon making deals. What I'm trying to tell you, Dean, is that it's not always childish or foolhardy to let yourself _believe_."

"Believe in what? In you? In Death? You've more than proven you're real. In fact I could do with a little less of your sticking your hand into everything around here. We're getting nowhere, here man, and I need to sleep. So if you could click your heels together three times and get the hell—"

"I have a message from Y/N," Death said finally, and Dean's breath caught in his throat.

"What? For me?" he asked, almost a whisper.

"Yes. What was it?" Death asked, walking around the room once more. Dean wanted nothing more than to throttle him as he put on an expression of deep thought, but he stood his ground, waiting. "She wanted me to tell you not to mess with her playlists," he said finally. Dean's heart was hammering, squeezing in on itself, a boa constrictor.

"She sent a message from the beyond and it was about her ipod?" Dean demanded.

"No, there was one more thing," Death said slowly. "Ah yes, she told me to tell you…what was it? To wait for her to come home." He looked at Dean with the slightest hint of a smile on his face, and disappeared.

"What the hell does that mean?" Dean yelled, turning around in his room, but it was absolutely still and quiet. He turned to head towards the door, intent on finding Sam if only to reassure himself that he wasn't finally going insane, but a breeze stopped him in his tracks. He turned and looked around the windowless room as the breeze turned into a wind, which turned into an immense and starling, howling thing, picking up the stack of photos from beside the bed and hurling them into the air around Dean. They formed a sort of whirlwind around him, circling him so quickly that he could no longer see the walls of the room. The photos were everywhere; your face, your smile, your eyes all around him. The photograph he was grasping in his hand was torn away from him too, flying into the mix._Make a wish_. Your words blurred as it settled in with its fellows, and just as quickly as it had begun, the photographs' flight stopped, and they fluttered to the ground around Dean, revealing that everything had changed.

He was no longer in the bunker—in fact, he wasn't inside at all. The smell of salt air hit him at the same time as the chill of the night air and he blinked a few times as the shape of a pier in the distance took form. Lights from houses twinkled far off to his right and to his left, the sound of waves. Dean stood, shocked under bright starlight, on the shores of a beach.

—

Finally, finally, finally. You could see it, could almost feel it, after so long, and you were up, running faster than you ever had before. Your feet pounded along the ground, the sound matching the beating of your heart as you raced through the corridor of light. It was all around you and impossible to tell whether you were running away from it or towards it. It didn't matter. You were heading back to Dean. Back to Dean…

_"Because I want you. I want you everywhere."_

_"Holy hell, don't __**go**__ anywhere."_

_"It's ok. I kind of like that I can keep you warm."_

You laughed at the thought of getting back to him, unfathomable for so long and now…so close. You listened to the long-since unused sound of your own laughter, unable to contain yourself and ran faster, holding your arms out beside you like wings, letting the light stream through your fingers, shining through your hair flowing out behind you. You let the light become a part of you. You could fly if you just went a little faster, you were sure of it, and you sliced through the brightness, carrying it with you. You ran like everything depended on it; past, present, and future. Because it did.

And then—all the light was gone in an instant. You came to a sudden stop, feeling your feet sink into soft sand. Everything was calm and quiet around you, and there just feet away…. Pieces of what looked like paper were falling around him onto the sand, and he had his back turned to you but you'd know him anywhere.

"Dean?" You tested his name out on your lips, your heart lifting at how good it felt to say again. He turned and your eyes finally met. So long…it had been so long. It was a balm to your soul. You stared across at one another for a moment before you let out some kind of sob mixed with laughter, bringing your fingers to wipe hastily at your eyes. He crossed over to you slowly, his face slack, eyes soft, and brought his hands to cup either side of your face.

"I'm dreaming," he murmured.

"No."

"I'm dead, then."

"No," you smiled, covering his hands with your own.

He was kissing you in an instant, melding his lips to yours, pressing hard enough that it hurt a little bit, but the pain was the last thing on your mind. You grabbed at one another, clutching desperately, and leaving no space between your bodies until everything else faded away. Nothing else mattered. The ache you'd felt for him resided even still, cutting deep into you, a ghost pain, as his lips moved against yours and you felt as though you could spend the rest of time kissing him just to make up for it, all the wasted and meaningless time you'd lost.

It was hard to say how long you stood there, unable to let one another go, but eventually you broke the kiss, pulling away for air and leaning your forehead against his. You slid your hands over his shoulders, underneath his leather jacket, relishing the familiarity of it.

"I see you kept it warm for me," you said quietly. Dean shook his head, keeping physical contact with you, running his thumb over your cheek as he cupped your face.

"How am I not dreaming?" he asked.

"Mysterious ways and all that," you answered vaguely. You weren't quite sure of the specifics, yourself, but the devil was in the details. Death was powerful, and maybe he had a few tricks up his sleeve.

"That's God, not Death," Dean said.

"I said the same thing to him. He asked me where I thought God had learned it all," you replied.

"I don't care. I don't care," Dean said suddenly. "Just don't wake me up. Don't go."

"You're not dreaming," you said softly, bringing your own hand to his face. He closed his eyes and leaned into your touch, unable to believe how real it felt.

"I was in the bunker…with Sam, and then Death was there. Now, I'm…" he trailed off, looking around at your surroundings. You knew them well.

"Back on the beach," you smiled. That old road trip of yours, forever hanging in a golden frame in your mind.

"With you," he added. His eyes were everywhere, roving over your body and your face, drinking you in, never sated. He ran his fingers through your hair softly, letting the strands fall soft onto your shoulder. "But this can't be real. It feels real—more than any other dream. But you're dead."

"I was," you corrected him. "Dean, Death pulled Sam's soul from hell when Cas couldn't. He can decimate a city with the snap of his fingers."

"That's destruction. Sam burned your body," Dean said, shaking his head.

"I don't know, Dean. Just because Death doesn't go around creating things doesn't mean he can't. You know more than anyone what a pain in the ass I can be," you added with a grin and you saw the corners of his lips turn up the smallest bit. "Maybe I was just too much for Death."

Dean didn't argue anymore with you, though he still believed he'd either lost his mind or was deep in some overdosed dream root sleep. He didn't care. He was going to spend the time with you and hope it lasted. Maybe this _was_ death for him; maybe he_ had_ overdosed in an attempt to get to you and this was how he got to spend the afterlife. He took your hand in his and started walking down the beach with you. It was the sweetest death he could imagine.

You told him you'd been in heaven, how you'd fought against it every day, trying to get back to him. Time was different there, you said, it passed in strange waves and no one slept. Time stretched out endlessly before you, expansive and great, but utterly empty and meaningless to you without Dean. He pressed kisses to your cheek as you talked, or ran his hand down your arm, over your hair, unable to get enough. You tried to get him to talk about his time, shocked when you found out it had been a full year on this very night. You didn't want to think back to it; back to the eyes of those great and fearsome hellhounds—the last thing you'd seen. You didn't remember anything after lighting the fuse of the hand grenade, but from the look in Dean's eye, he had relived the entire thing too many times in his own haunted and tattered mind.

You walked for an hour before you let out a yawn. It felt good to be tired again, to know that sleep and dreams were coming for you, and Dean led you wordlessly up the beach and towards the boardwalk. You stepped into the first beachside inn you came across and paid the night attendant extra cash from Dean's wallet to get a room at the ungodly hour.

"Can we get a late checkout?" you asked, as he slid the room key across the counter towards you, and you felt Dean's eyes settle on you, his hand squeezing yours tightly.

You climbed the stairs together and found your room at the end of the open walkway, letting yourselves in and surveying the surroundings. Rather, you did—Dean's eyes were locked on you still, unwilling to blink if he didn't have to, terrified you were going to disappear at any second.

"Home sweet home," you smiled, turning to him. He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you tightly to him again and you tilted your head up to kiss him. It felt good to use your body again, to feel something solid underneath your hands after so long without anything corporeal.

Alone and in the safety of four private walls, Dean deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue softly into your mouth. He tasted the same, and you wanted to cry again from missing him, but now wasn't the time and you pushed it back. You returned his fervor and it spurred him along. He moved his hands to your waist, gripping you tightly, almost manically, working to pull your jeans off without unbuttoning them first. He bit at your lip at the same time, pushing your pants down your legs. He was trying to get you both over towards the bedroom and you tripped a bit on your pants, partway down and laughed, pulling away from him.

"Hey, hey," you whispered. "Just go slow, ok? We have time. I'm not going anywhere."

You looked up at him to see he was trembling slightly, clenching his jaw.

"Promise?" he asked. You leaned up and kissed him softly, tenderly, this time, moving your lips slowly against his; your own kind of promise. He picked you up and carried you from the living area to the bedroom and laid you down. He took his time now, unbuttoning your pants so they slid easier down your legs, and pulled them off along with your shoes. He moved to hover over you, leaning down to kiss you again. You pushed his jacket off his shoulders and heard it fall off the side of the bed to the floor. He moved to straddle you, one knee on either side of your hips and he pulled his shirt up and over his head, discarding it as well.

You smiled up at him, running your hands over his stomach, his chest, to his shoulders.

"Your hands are cold," he said quietly, smiling down at you for the first time. You felt tears spring to your eyes. You could imagine how long it had been since he'd worn that smile, and it looked so good on him. He used his thumb to wipe the tears away for you before bringing your hands to his mouth, breathing onto them and rubbing them between his own.

"I can think of a better way to warm me up," you said and he raised his eyebrows at you, making you laugh.

**XXXXX**

He ran his hands underneath your shirt, running lazy circles over your stomach as he moved torturously slow towards your breasts. He made his way there eventually, though, tweaking your nipples gently until they were pebbled and hard under his fingertips. You sat up a bit, letting him pull your shirt off and throw it to the side. He stood and stepped out of his own shoes and pants before pulling the comforter and sheets back, laying back down with you underneath them. You laid on your side and faced him, his fingers running through your hair once more.

"It's been a long time," he said.

"Has it?"

"There was no one else," he replied softly. "I couldn't. I didn't want—-I only wanted you."

"Good answer," you smiled over at him, and guided his hand down to the waistband of your panties. He hooked his thumb in the side and pulled them over your hips and down your legs, where you kicked them off your feet. He shed his own boxers as well and moved closer to you, running his hand down your back, all the way down to the back of your thigh where he hitched your leg up high over his hip.

He captured your lips in a kiss so sweet, so overwhelming in its gentleness, that you almost didn't have room in your mind for registering the sensation of him entering you at the same time. Almost. You gasped as he slid inside of you, closing your eyes against it until he'd filled you up all the way.

Home. You were back home with Dean at last. He stayed still a moment and you opened your eyes to look at him; his brows were knitted together.

"Did you forget how?" you teased.

"You're…" he hesitated, biting down on his lower lip.

"What?"

"Tighter. You're tighter," he said. You pushed him away a little bit, gaping up at him.

"What are you talking about?"

"I don't know. You just feel tighter. When I went to hell, I got my v-card back. Maybe you did, too," he mused. You let your head fall forward onto his shoulder and shook your head.

"Oh my god, Dean. You need to shut up," you groaned. "You're ruining the moment."

"I'm just saying you may have been re-hymenated. _I_ was when—" You cut him off, pressing your lips firmly to his, and you felt them turn up in a small smile. He chuckled a bit, deep and gravely in his chest. Your heart nearly burst with the sound.

"What?" you asked against him.

"I just forgot how much I missed you shutting me up," he replied, and started to slowly rock his hips into you. You rolled your body along with his, falling into his rhythm and rising to meet him. He leaned down to kiss you often, keeping his eyes on you the entire time. He let his hands wander as he pressed back and forth against you, running them slowly over your skin. He grasped gently at your thighs, your hips, over your belly and back to your breasts.

That ache that you'd been holding so deep inside was subsiding with every touch of Dean's hand, every movement of him above your body. You clung to him tightly, arms wrapped around his strong back, feeling the muscles contract as he pushed into you.

"Dean," you said, breathlessly.

"Hmm?"

"Can you go deeper? I want—I want you," you said, finding yourself trembling some. Words couldn't convey your meaning, but he looked down into your eyes and understood; he knew the need you had was so much more than physical, that it went so much further than that. You brought your legs to wrap around him, granting him better access, and he pushed into you as deeply as he could, until you cried out. He halted his actions immediately when he saw the tears streaming fast down your face.

"Hey, hey. What is it? What's wrong? Talk to me," he said softly. You shook your head, shaking with new sobs.

"Don't stop," you cried, grasping at his shoulders. "Please don't stop. I just missed you. I missed you so much, Dean."

A tear fell from his own eye as he leaned down to kiss you for the hundredth, for the thousandth time that night, and he cried with you, silently, as he resumed his pace once more.

"You have no idea," he murmured, voice thick, and found your hand with his, twining your fingers tightly.

**XXXXX**

The two of you spent hours under the sheets together, making up for lost time, until the lonely and abandoned hours of early morning rose up unnoticed like the tide coming in. You looked over at Dean as you lay finished and spent with the moonlight washing in, seeing for the first time in the dark room the toll the last year had taken on him. He looked rugged—so tired. Too tired. The dark circles under his eyes were prominent despite the gleam they now held as they stared back at you. You traced your fingers underneath them and down to his lips. His hand lay lightly over your bare hip, softly smoothing over your skin.

"You're tired," you said quietly, not a question. He shook his head and leaned forward to kiss you. Your lips would be swollen tomorrow from him to be sure; it was a good problem to have.

"I'm not."

"Liar."

He smiled over at you and you let out a yawn of your own, trying to entice his own confession.

"We need to sleep," you said.

"If I sleep I might not get this back," he replied softly.

"I'm real," you chuckled. "This is real."

Dean gathered you closer to him, pulling you against his chest.

"If you're real, then you missed your line," he said. You pinched his shoulder a bit and he laughed.

"What line?" you asked.

"Do you or do you not have a playlist for this?"

You gasped and sat up, out of his arms, and looked down at him.

"Are you telling me you have my ipod still?" you asked, not daring to believe it. He grinned up at you before rolling over, reaching over the side of the bed to grasp at his jacket. He dug his hand into one of the pockets and pulled it out, handing it to you.

"Now _I'm_ dreaming," you said, unlocking the screen. Everything there, just as you'd left it.

"Glad to know the ipod takes precedence," he teased, laying back down and pulling you gently with him. You laid down with Dean's chest pressed against your back and he rested his chin on your shoulder, looking with you as you scrolled through your playlists.

"I can't believe you took care of it," you said in awe. He reached forward and took your wrist in his hand, stopping you from scrolling further.

"Wait. I have to know," he said, and you turned to look back at him. "What's on the 'Dean' playlist?"

You laughed and handed your ipod over to him.

"See for yourself," you said. He pressed a kiss to your hair as he took it in his hands, letting his thumb press down on that playlist for the first time, ready now to see what songs you'd picked for his very own.

He stared down in confusion, holding it out for you to see.

"_Blank?_" he asked. "What the hell? I don't get any songs? After all the stuff we sang in the car together?"

You laughed again, taking the ipod from him and turning it off.

"It's not that I couldn't think of any," you said.

"Then what was it?"

"I looked. I did. But…no song seemed big enough for you."

He felt his heart fill with your words, thinking of you sitting in front of your music, trying so hard to find the right song.

"You need to know something," he said suddenly. You turned around to face him. "I love you so much. I said it before…before everything when you were asleep. I was so stupid. I love you, Y/N."

"Dean," you whispered, smiling at him. "I know."

"You do?"

"Of course," you laughed. "You didn't need to say it for me to feel it. Everything you did for me, everything we had. Have," you corrected. "Of course I knew." You kissed his lips briefly before turning back, letting him hold you once more. He smiled when you pressed your icy feet against his legs.

He wrapped his arms more tightly around you and breathed deeply next to your hair, soaking in the smell of you. Listening to your breathing, feeling your heartbeat beneath his hands, Dean closed his eyes, unable to resist sleep the pull any longer, and fell into a dreamless rest beside what he prayed wasn't a cruel reality his tired brain had conjured.

—

"Wake up, Dean."

Dean shifted in bed, clamping his eyes more tightly shut. He didn't want this part, yet. He wasn't ready to say goodbye again; he would go crazy with it if he had to part with you one more time. But the dream always ended.

He felt cold hands press against his chest and his hands flew down, capturing your wrists lightly. He opened his eyes, blinking a few times when he saw you smiling up at him in the early afternoon light.

You rested your chin on his chest, your eyes sparkling.

"I told you I was real," you said. He pulled your face up to his, kissing your lips. Swollen, just as you'd thought they'd be. You ran your hand over his stubble and down his chest again, before pulling it back.

"Sorry. I still run cold," you apologized. He grabbed your hand and pressed it to himself again.

"I kind of like that I can keep you warm," he said with a smile.

He looked better this morning, the circles under his eyes were faded. His eyes, themselves, looked brighter, like he was really waking up for the first time in a year.

"Still at the beach," you said, glancing over towards the window where the surf was breaking outside. "It's like Death sent us on the weirdest vacation ever. So what do you want to do?"

Dean stared at you, holding you in his gaze, and shook his head. "I don't care."

—

You ended up taking a walk along the beach after you'd eaten. You'd missed eating more than you'd missed sleeping and you had to remind Dean to take bites of his own late breakfast instead of watching you the whole time. Hand-in-hand you'd taken to the sandy shores when you were finished, taking in the sight of the great blue horizon in the daylight. You weren't far from where you'd spent the night under the pier over a year ago, but you walked in the opposite direction, back the way you'd come from the night before.

You stopped after an hour or so, and bent to pick up a photograph half buried in the sand. You and Dean. A leftover from whatever magic Death had conjured up to bring him there less than twenty four hours ago. You and Dean—the old you and Dean—beamed up at you from the photograph. It seemed a lifetime ago. An _afterlifetime_ ago, you thought to yourself with a smile. You held your hand out in front of you and let it go. You and Dean watched it slip from your fingers, and drift over to the water's edge where it was carried away by the waves, and the powerful and invisible riptide.


End file.
